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Tag: grace (Page 5 of 10)

Use The Front Door.

May 13, 2023 /

MaryEllen Montville

“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” –John 10:9-10.

I sat on the grass in my dad’s backyard and cried out to my heavenly Father. I was distraught and brokenhearted. Truth be told, I was desperate—I just had to get inside my dad’s house one last time.

I had been trying to break into the house for an hour or more by climbing through the den window. But the sill of that window was just too high, and the height of the bulkhead I was standing on was too low.

You see, my stepmother had died the year prior, and since then, my dad’s house had been closed-up. And try as I might to jump up high enough for my hips to clear the windowsill so my torso could slide inside; it just wasn’t happening. Even after stacking bricks and anything else, I could get my hands on anything remotely safe to stand on. Repeatedly, I tried, but I couldn’t clear that sill. Sobbing and frustrated, I remember crying out, “Abba, please! I’m desperate! I have to get inside! I have to walk through my dad’s house one last time. Please, Lord! Please, help me!”

I honestly couldn’t say how much time had passed. I know it wasn’t long before I heard a car door close.

Moving now from the back of the house, I started walking toward the front, and that’s when I saw them. The realtor and some couple following close behind her. I was both excited and anxious all at the same time. So, again, I began to pray. “Abba, I believe you sent this woman. That she is the answer to my prayer, please, give me favor with her. I don’t want her to think I’m some random person who doesn’t belong here.” I gave them a few minutes to get inside before I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. She answered the door, and I explained who I was and why I was there.

“This was my dad’s house, and I’ve recently relocated from Hawaii and heard of my stepmother’s passing. I want to walk through the house one last time before it’s sold if that’s okay?”

Between her furrowed brow and what felt like a forever hesitation, finally, she said, “What can you tell me about the person who owned this house? I gave her everything I could think of shy of my dad’s shoe size and eye color, and it must have satisfied her because she said, “the buyers are upstairs at the moment, you can walk through the main floor.”

“Perfect,” I thought. Thank you, Lord! That’s all I had wanted.

It wasn’t until I left the house and got back into my car that I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “Children don’t have to break into their Father’s house. They walk in through the front door.”  

I can’t even describe what washed over me at that moment. Joy? Freedom? Peace? All of these, all at once? I know that the tears began to fall and that God healed some deep, festering wound I wasn’t even aware existed until I heard His Words and felt His healing within—warm and comforting.

That was roughly four years ago now, but it still feels like yesterday.

And if I close my eyes, I can still see the front door of my dad’s house, see him standing there waiting as I arrived and waving as I left. And I can still hear what the Holy Spirit whispered to me as clearly today as I did then.

Beloved of God, I felt led to share this with you today because some of you may be struggling with your identity in Christ Jesus—not knowing who you are as a child of God. I know there was a time I did.

Perhaps you feel you aren’t worthy to, as God’s Word promises, “… [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].” –Hebrews 4:16.

Maybe you, too, have felt or are feeling unworthy—doubting you have the right or privilege to walk right through the front door of our Father’s house. You’re not alone, Beloved of God. Many of God’s children are still working through an identity crisis, still carrying the baggage they were set free from the very moment Jesus made His Home in their hearts. “he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.” –Titus 3:5. So unworthiness, insecurity, shame, and doubt are no longer our portion.

Keep in mind that your sanctification is ongoing. Remembering this: You have been changed, whether you feel it or not. You’ve been set free from the kingdom of darkness and live now in the Kingdom of Light—the Kingdom of our God. And remember also: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.….” –Romans 8:1-2.

No. You will never be 100% free of the worldly residue that clings to even the most saintly of men until you are face to face with Jesus, still, Christ does not condemn you for this, so please, stop condemning yourself! Hold fast instead to God’s Truth.

That the very moment you genuinely believed you are who God says you are and that He is who He says He is to you—in you, everything about you, who you have been right up to that very instant, whether you’ve been walking with Him ten minutes or twenty years, changed in an instant. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” –2 Corinthians 5:17. Read that again.

How? Because your relationship with God becomes personal and intimate in that glorious instant. And, as with every relationship, as you invest in it, through reading God’s Word, prayer and time spent with the Lord, your relationship with Him deepens. It becomes full and sustaining. Love grows, and trust is built and sustained.

No longer are you an outsider feeling like you must push your way into a place you’ve not been invited to. Instead, as God’s disciple—His son or daughter, you know your heavenly Father has set a place at His table just for you. “You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones….” –Luke 22:28-30.

You are Christ’s. His child—His heir. As such, if you remain in Him, faithful to Him, are entitled, have been promised, to receive all God has set aside for you from the foundation of the world. Why? How is this possible?

Your Father has always loved you.

Jesus has always wanted you to know how precious, loved, and cared-for you are. So much so that He agreed—no, willingly came forth in the fullness of time declaring to the Father that He’d die in your place that you might have Life in the Father, now and forevermore. “While we were still helpless [powerless to provide for our salvation], at the right time Christ died [as a substitute] for the ungodly” –Romans 5:6.

As God’s child, please, receive, no, cling to the promise of the Holy Spirit for dear life. Like a drowning man to a life ring. “But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast.” –Hebrews 4:16.

Yes, cling! Press to your chest that Rhema Word of Surety and Truth Holy Spirit shared with me as I cried out to Him in desperation and great need: “Children don’t have to break into their Father’s house. They walk in through the front door.”

And if you have yet to meet this Jesus—this Loving Father I’ve spoken of today, you can. See, that’s the thing with our God. So long as there is breath in your lungs, there is always hope. Still, remember, no man is promised tomorrow. And no one, not even the vilest of sinners, will ever be rejected by God if they come to Him sincerely repentant and with a heart desperate to hear from Him. “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” –Hebrews 13:6.

Do You Believe?

April 8, 2023 /
MaryEllen Montville

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and in a godly manner in the present age.” –Titus 2:11-12.

Many of us will celebrate Resurrection Sunday tomorrow morning. Yet what Christ did—defeating death, sin and the grave, making it possible for “whosoever will” to be restored to right relationship with the Father, coming not to judge, but save, indeed supersedes a day, any day, on man’s calendar.

Because, somewhere in eternity past, in obedience to the Father’s will, Jesus deigned to leave God’s side temporarily, to step away from the Perfect and Holy Majesty on High. God’s saving grace wrapped Himself instead in humility and flesh. Born into obscurity, Jesus was laid in an animal trough. He tasted our temptations while remaining God’s only sin-less, sacrificial Lamb. “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” –1 Peter 1:20.

Jesus, who wrote the Book on self-sacrifice, God’s Living Word, died that you and I might live. “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.” –Hebrews 2:14.

Christ, the King of Kings, was born not to the royal, the high and mighty—though they are welcome at His table, in His heart.

No. Jesus chose to live amongst, be born to, poor people, according to the world’s standards, that is. Jesus came to serve, not to be served, to extend His Royal Scepter of grace and mercy to all those who only deserve death. To lay down His life for the least of us—the trainwreck, the sin-soaked addict and homosexual. The prostitute, the wife abuser, liar, the child killer, and the murderer.

And, dear Christian, since we have tasted so great a Love, been set free from the certain death sentence, that automatic guilty verdict rendered when we succumb to sins allure, as our Scripture instructs then, ought we not live sensibly? Choosing to deny our flesh, clinging instead to every Word that comes from the mouth of God? Denying ungodliness and worldly desires, living righteously, and in a godly manner in the present age.”

 You and I, dear believers in the Lord Jesus, have been called to a life counter to the world we live in—always remembering this world is not our home. Like Jesus, the Firstfruit of the resurrection to come, our heart’s desire, our earthly mission ought to be to do the will of the Father. To join Jesus in the death of our wills, wants, and fleshly desires that we might also join Him in the joyful celebration awaiting all those who, through Christ’s victory over sin and death, will soon, and very soon, live with Him forever and ever, amen!

And for anyone who thinks this is impossible, I will remind you that this is Ressurection season! A season of “suddenly” and of the unexpected!

Undoubtedly, many in Christ’s day, even some closest to Him, never expected to truly see Jesus rise from the grave on the third day—even though He had told them He would. And as it was then, so it is now, today. Many will not believe Jesus’ Word. Moreover, they refuse to believe Jesus is who He says He is and will do all He says He would do—was born, lived and died to do! And that includes His soon return to judge the living and the dead.

How I pray you will not be counted among those who refuse to believe.

Instead, you’d call out to Jesus today, taking Him at His Word on this Ressurection eve. That you’ll choose to accept, He is Mighty to save even the one who sinned so greatly that they’ve bought into their enemies lie hook, line, and sinker. The lie telling them Jesus couldn’t possibly want them, save them. The lie that says you’re too far gone, their sin too great for Jesus to remove.

Yet tomorrow’s celebration of our Lord’s victory over death and the grave truly is a new beginning—a next and not an end.

Let tomorrow’s dawn find you, find us all, those waiting on the return of our Lord, with eyes fixed on the horizon. “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” –Hebrews 12:2-3.

Because for every Blood-bought believer, tomorrow marks the rolling away of the stone; Life, not death. Revealing the next chapter of that abundant life Christ came to give all those who would believe in Him. His here-and-now life. And, His eternal life.

Tomorrow marks the season of revisiting, of resurrection if you will, of hopes and dreams deferred. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a time and times of new strength and vigor—a fresh grip on our sleepy faith. And, Oh, Beloved, how our “weary from well-doing hands “would benefit from a new grip.” So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.” –Hebrews 12:12-13.

So I am not at all surprised that Holy Spirit led me to Titus Two for today’s teaching. For some, the end of a thing. For others, new beginnings. If you doubt me, the one who’ll be saved tomorrow will be sharing their testimony of how they felt hopeless this week, yesterday, last night, wanting to end their life. They’ll tell you how in desperation, not even sure if they genuinely believed God cared, they cried out to Jesus in despair nevertheless. And they’ll testify how, in His mercy, Jesus showed Himself real to them—alive. And because He did, they are still.

If I were you, I wouldn’t miss church tomorrow. More, starting today, I’d choose to take God at His Word because it is our choice. “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”

“The grace that has appeared,” the One Paul refers to in today’s Scripture, is, indeed, King Jesus!

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” –John 11:25-26. Jesus was talking to Martha, Lazarus’ sister, beside Lazarus’s grave. Then this happened a few minutes after asking Martha if she believed Him: “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” –John 11:39-43.

If I were you, I wouldn’t miss church tomorrow. More, starting today, I’d choose to take God at His Word.

Sifted

March 4, 2023 /
MaryEllen Montville

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” –Luke 22:31-32.

Why does it feel like I am dying?

The short answer—you likely are. But that’s a good thing. Hear me out.

So long as we are here on earth, child of God, your Christian walk will be peppered with seasons when it will feel like you are dying. Why? God is pruning you, transforming and reshaping you into the image and likeness of Jesus, His Son. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. –Romans 8:29.

God is removing your dead wood—your fleshy bits. Those weak or unproductive areas in your life that siphon your precious time, attention, and focus away from Christ. Those fleshly parts of you that look nothing at all like Jesus. So if God is removing it, let it go! For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. –Philippians 2:13. Because even the so-called “good stuff” will be useless where God is preparing to take you, so off with it. Remember, God is far more concerned with your character and eternal good than your comfort

Having experienced this painful process, Peter had firsthand knowledge of this Truth. Yet he was not the first of Christ’s disciples to have been sifted. And he wouldn’t be the last. In fact, each of the Twelve had been—sifted. Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. Within this month, or year, this very day, many of Jesus’s disciples have or will experience the crushing anguish experienced when God permits Satan to sift one of His children.

Will their inner cry and turmoil echo Peter’s, perhaps? “After all Jesus has done for me. All I have witnessed and know Him to be, how could my faith be so weak? How could I fail Him so miserably!?”

And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” –Luke 22:55-59.

“I was so sure I’d rather die than deny Jesus by demonstrating so little courage in my hour of testing.”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus declared, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” Peter replied, “Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You.” –Matthew 26:34-35.

Have you been experiencing a time of profound spiritual wrestling, hopelessness, or fear? A time so daunting that your toes, however briefly, drew dangerously close to the line labelled turning away? A moment when the literal fear of God ran through you, icy, jolting, one that left you crying out to God, repenting of your pridefulness and misplaced self-confidence? And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. –Luke 22:61-62.

Have you ever experienced a dark night of the soul?

Has the very earth beneath your feet suddenly upturned? Where everything you’ve believed and professed was tested, tried, and found wanting?

Or that startling moment of “I am not yet who I will be.” And you find yourself taken aback by the jarring realization you are still very human, contrary to your great faith in Christ. You’ve underestimated your vulnerability and are weak, susceptible to failing, to fall. Beloved friend, have you yet come face-to-face with that moment when it was Jesus, and only Jesus (as it always is), who held you back from a fall from which you’d never get up? I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. –John 10:28-29.

It’s in that place where we find Peter, here where many may find themselves today.

If this is you—If you’re experiencing a dark night of the soul, take heart, Beloved of God, He is still with you. But know this. God allows this crushing, questioning, this desperate time of falling and failing, of testing, to beset you. Just read the Book of Job. In fact, just read verses Eight thru Twelve for confirmation. “Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” –Job 1:8-12.

And no, child of God, your Father has not stopped loving you. Neither has God forsaken you. Quite the opposite, His Holy Spirit is refining you. You’re about to level up.

Now notice how today’s scripture verse is so very personal, how God is interceding for you, specifically—as surely and personally as He did for your brother Peter. And though Jesus informed Peter that Satan had asked to sift them all, He also made clear that it was for Peter whom He was praying. Peter had much work to do— and he needed to be spiritually squared away to accomplish all that Jesus had called and equipped him to do. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

God is working out your fleshy bits, too, Beloved. Perhaps the sifting you’re experiencing is happening so that, like Peter, you too may be restored, transformed, made new, readied for the next leg of your journey with the Lord. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. –Jeremiah 18:4.

Holy Spirit will reveal your weak areas to you so that you might repent of any pridefulness, self-confidence, anything not of God. But, praise His Merciful name! As surely as the Holy Spirit convicts, He also intercedes in our great moments of weakness. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. –Romans 8:26-27.

Friend, if you are experiencing a time of change and trials, call out to Jesus. He will come, and with Him, His Holy Spirit, to help walk you through every valley. Romans 10:9-10 assures you of the eternal safety found only in Jesus. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

The Invite.

January 21, 2023 /
Matthew Botelho

“Come to the banquet!” dropped in my spirit Sunday during corporate worship. As the worship team played, a stillness came over the congregation when the Word came forth through a dear sister, “Be filled with His Word. Be hungry for the Word!” As those words were spoken with authority, I heard the Spirit say, “Come to the banquet! The invitations have been sent!”

It is so amazing how our Lord will speak in part through one person. Then another will say the same Truth, confirmation that the same spirit is flowing through both. For we each know in part, and we prophesy in part. But God is the God of order, and we are one Body.

My dear brothers and sisters, new friends, I pray this teaching speaks to you.

God is calling you, calling us all—deeper in this season. There are settings at His banquet table not yet seen and foods not yet tasted. Heavenly delicacies of favor and blessings. For His word is rich and filling. Crave the daily bread that is placed on the altar! The invitations have been sent out. The question is, will you accept it?

As the Lord spoke this to me, He led me to Matthew 22, The Parable of The Wedding Feast. Jesus is teaching the people what the kingdom of God is like. Now, if you don’t know what a parable is, that’s ok. Neither did I at the beginning of my walk. We are all at various stages in our walk with Jesus. A parable is a simple story that illustrates a moral or spiritual lesson. The people Jesus was teaching were babes in the faith, exactly how you and I started. Yet He met them where they were.

In Matthew 22: 1-3, Jesus teaches, “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding, and they were not willing to come.”

God has arranged a marriage for His Son. The people of Israel are His chosen people. The nation is the bride, and Jesus is the Groom.

Jesus’ disciples delivered the invitations, proclaiming that the kingdom of God had come! Some accepted and received the Good News. However, other people didn’t want to accept the Truth, even though miracles were being performed before their eyes! Many that were sick and possessed by demons were being healed and delivered! How could they not see this as Truth? That Jesus is the Christ, our Savior! Jesus gives us the answer in Matthew 13:15, ‘For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”

You are invited to this amazing, glorious wedding feast. A seat has been set for you at the table, yet you decide to remain where you are. Why friend?! What is taking such priority in your life that if the King, and I am talking about King Jesus, has personally invited you to come and sit with Him and enjoy the wedding banquet, where you will receive salvation, righteousness, peace, unspeakable joy. Why would you even think of saying no to that?! Still, God, who is rich in mercy, gives us a second chance by inviting us again.

As we read in the following few scriptures, we will see that man has not changed in the past 2,000 years.

God is calling His church back to Him. The Church is His Bride, and His Son, Jesus, is the Bride Groom. He has given humanity a second chance through repentance and salvation. Do you know that God will keep calling you until you answer and that not answering is an answer? God is calling you right now! Oh, how I pray that your answer is “yes, Lord. I receive you.”

Jesus says in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him and make Our home with him.” My brothers and sisters, friends, Jesus wants to be in a relationship with you. And a relationship requires love.

Matthew 22:4 “Again, he sent out other servants, saying, “Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”

It is a big deal when God repeats something within the same chapter of scripture. Notice that He sent His servants out not once but twice. All things are ready! The menu has been prepared, and it looks like a giant BBQ is being served. God has spared no expense. All you need to do is accept the invitation and say yes. It sounds so simple, and yet we complicate things. “Sorry I cannot attend, I must………” (insert your reason here). “But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business.”—Matthew 22:5.

We make time in our daily lives for what’s important to us, our priorities, whether our jobs or hobbies. But is Jesus Lord over our priorities—not one of them, but Lord over them? Do we set aside time out of our day for Jesus? Let us ask this question: how often are we picking up our Bibles? What about Facebook? Are you being fed by what is happening in the world, in friends’ and strangers’ lives? Or are you being fed by the Word of God?

My brothers and sisters, friends, I am guilty of this too. Holy Spirit has convicted me. I am no better than those I’m posing these questions to. We all fall short. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”—Romans 3:23.

My point, my friends, is that we need to refocus and realign ourselves to God’s will and His Word. Allow Holy Spirit to minister to you. And do not harden your hearts if you hear His voice. And as we end our time together this week, I pray that this teaching, more God’s inerrant Word, has stirred something deep within you. God willing, I will be back again soon to continue the next part of this teaching.

Dear friends, the things of this world are failing, and the days grow darker.

But God has invited you to come to His wedding feast. Jesus has come into the world as a Redeeming Light. He is both the invitation and the only way to salvation. Come to the banquet and be satisfied. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and repent of your sins. He is faithful to forgive. Amen. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” –Romans 10:9-10.

Greater Love.

December 17, 2022 /
Matthew Botelho

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we must love one another. –1 John 4:10-11.

Hello to all my dear brothers and sisters, and Merry Christmas to you! May our Lord bless you for taking the time to read what He has given me to share. This is the season of joy and peace on earth. It is the season God sent the Greatest Gift of all to show His love for us; Jesus, His only Son.

Yet humanity is slowly declining in the love department. Especially in the whole, love thy brother.

Those who run around with a me-first mentality can bring us down, discourage us, and, if we’re not guarding our hearts, potentially sow seeds that will spring up into a mindset of, what’s the point? And that’s not to mention how much division is happening in this great country. Everyone has an opinion. And everyone wants to be heard.

I wonder if the disciples thought about these things during their ministry.

Why? Because there is nothing hidden that will not be uncovered, my friends. Jesus knew then, as He knows now, what was in men’s hearts. That is why as Blood-Bought believers, we must adhere to the new command our Lord Jesus gave us. It is not a mere suggestion. It is a command from our King. I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. –John 13:34-35.

My brothers and sisters, there is still hope in all you see happening around you. The darkness shall not prevail because some two-thousand years ago, God did something beyond amazing! He gave this world the ultimate sign of His love. He sent His Son to die for our sins once and for all! Let’s read this together in one voice, my dear family! For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.—John 3:16.

Ok, so language, or specific words, catch my attention when I read different versions of the Bible.

Maybe it’s that way for some of you armchair theologians as well. For instance, in the King James Version of the Bible, John 3:16 uses “whosoever believes” rather than “everyone who believes,” as written in the New Living Translation. And though everyone and whosoever means the same thing (anyone who places their faith in Jesus will be saved), there is something about the word whosoever that catches me whenever I read it. For me, “whosoever” is enormous. It’s significant. It’s so substantial; it encompasses everyone. Whosoever means no one person’s sin is too big for God to forgive.

So whosoever is for the addict still stuck in their addiction. The prostitute, murderer, gang member, that person who thinks their sins are so great God could never forgive, nevermind love them. Whosoever speaks to the one who believes Jesus can only love those nice church people, but not someone like me. Maybe whosoever resonates with me because I was once whosoever before I fell in love with Jesus.

Are you whosoever, friend? If you are, Jesus does love you, died for you. Just as He did for everyone else, but you must believe He is who He says He is—that’s your part. That’s the part everyone who says Jesus is Lord must believe. So have you asked Jesus to be Lord over your life? Have you let Him into your heart?

Let’s look at John 3 a little closer. It says, “so that everyone or whosoever believes in Him.” Belief is key. If you do not believe in Jesus, that He is who He says He is, then your name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. It takes a confession of faith and repentance of your sins to go from Whosoever to saved. I believe many miss this Truth.

God loves the world so much that He made a plan to save fallen man. A Way to save whosoever will accept Him. And the key that opens God’s plan is Jesus. Salvation is in Jesus alone. Jesus’s sacrificial Blood was always part of God’s plan. A plan first seen in the Garden of Eden—right under the enemy’s nose. Satan thought he had corrupted God’s ultimate design, but our God had a plan. The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them. –Genesis 1:21.

Now the skins God used to cover Adam and Eve are known as a type and shadow, which means we first catch a glimpse of Jesus and God’s plan of salvation in the Garden of Eden. Innocent blood shed to cover the guilty. How uncomfortable and undeserving we feel when we sin. Adam and Eve must have felt the same way, so they tried to cover up their mess with fig leaves. But they failed, as we all do when we take things into our own hands.

Can you think of times you’ve attempted to cover over your sins?

God knew what they had done, so He asked Adam a question. “Where are you?” –Genesis 3:9. My brothers and sisters, this is a selah moment! A time to pause here and reflect. Holy Spirit is asking that you take this opportunity to ask yourselves this same question. “Where are you?”

Moving on now…

In the Garden of Eden, God made coverings for Adam and Eve from some of His creations. Scripture does not say what type of animals were slain to cover them, but we know that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. So, could it have been lambs that were slain to cover Adam and Eve? We’ll find out someday. I raise this question because John’s gospel records the day John the Baptist sees Jesus walking towards him. He proclaims Him to be the Lamb of God who’s come to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29-31). And in Genesis 4:6, Adam and Eve’s son, Abel, presents a sacrifice of the firstborn lamb from his flock. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering. Had God remembered His act of slaying an innocent back in the garden to cover those who had sinned?

According to the law of Moses, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Throughout the Old Testament, an animal had to die. It’s blood shed for man’s sin to be covered. But the blood of these animals was only a temporary solution. Their blood could not fix man’s sin problem, and sin, my dear brothers and sisters, is death for us. God removes His presence where sin abounds because He cannot dwell where sin lives. God is Holy, forever (Hebrews 9:2). The Blood of Jesus is pure and undefiled because God is Holy, and His Blood is Holy. It’s what washes away our sins. The Blood of Jesus is not a covering for our sins; coverings will be removed. The Blood of Jesus washes away all our sins. Come let us discuss this, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool. –Isaiah 1:18.

Jesus has come as Light into a dark world. Whosoever receives Jesus as Lord is saved. God has come in the flesh. Emmanuel, God with us. He died in our place—a sacrifice for our sins, foreshadowing what God did in the Garden of Eden. As we end this teaching, brothers and sisters, be reminded of the Greatest Gift God has given us, His only Son, Jesus. Salvation is found in none other. We caught of peek at God’s plan for man’s redemption in the garden, but in Jesus, God’s plan was fulfilled. Jesus is the gift we do not deserve.

My dear friends, scripture tells us today is the day of salvation! So if you are reading about Jesus for the first time and feel some stirring inside of you. Let today be the day you say yes to Jesus and make Him Lord over your life. Turn away from your sins and ask Jesus to come into your heart. Be washed clean of your sins by His precious blood. Let today be the day of new beginnings in our Lord Jesus. Amen. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. –Romans 10:9-10.

He Will Prove Himself

December 10, 2022 /
Kendra Santilli

With the faithful you prove yourself faithful, with the blameless you prove yourself blameless, with the pure you prove yourself pure, but with the crooked you prove yourself shrewd. For you rescue an oppressed people, but you humble those with haughty eyes.–Psalms 18:25-27

How you perceive God is a direct reflection of the position of your heart.

The heart that is in the position of hating God or believing that He doesn’t exist is the heart that has never met Him. If only they knew how good He is, how kind He is, how faithful He is. If only they knew Him as I do: Rescuer, Healer, Restorer, and Friend. He is always faithful to meet me in my need, but when I am not in need, it is easy to allow my heart to slip into the mode of thinking that convinces me that I can make it on my own. I forget His faithfulness to me when I don’t remain faithful to Him. I can easily forget that God’s ways are good and blameless if my eyes are fixed on the world’s injustices, but when I shift my gaze toward Him again, I see Jesus in His light, for who He is. As I draw near to Him, He draws near to me (James 4:8).

His presence is made known to the heart that needs Him. He is so near to the broken-hearted and the oppressed. He can’t resist responding to a sincere cry for help because He’s that good. Conversely, there is the heart that believes they don’t need help. To this person, there’s never a sincere cry for help, preventing a sincere experience of His intervention. The pride of life and one’s own achievements can blind a person to their need for the Lord and His mercy. This pride boasts of self-sufficiency, convincing a person that they can do everything independently. It views God through the critical lens of self-righteousness. It makes the heart doubt the goodness of God and His faithfulness, taking matters into its own hands without realizing that His ways are better than ours. It fails to remember His goodness. In turn, these people can’t see through God’s perspective. These people perceive God as shrewd because of the pride that has kept their hearts closed to knowing Him as faithful, blameless, and pure. I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve. –Jeremiah 17:10.

So he will repay according to their deeds: fury to his enemies, retribution to his foes, and he will repay the coasts and islands. – Isaiah 59:18. The truth is the God of the Bible is faithful to His faithful ones, and His faithfulness is good. But to His enemies, He is just. What have your actions warranted? This life is our one chance at choosing Jesus. He is drawn to clean hands and a pure heart. It may seem contradictory because if you don’t have a pure heart, how can He be drawn to you? And, if everyone is a sinner, how can there be one pure enough in heart for Him to reciprocate purity? The beauty of our God is that even in your trespasses, He can purify your heart and cleanse your mind if only you would ask! Just realizing that your heart could use cleaning is enough for Him to begin His work within you. He repays all your work according to what you’ve done. I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve. –Jeremiah 17:10. The heart that generously does good by His grace, He repays richly. But to the selfish and prideful of heart, He proves Himself shrewd.

He takes care of His people, and we will see Him faithful, blameless, and pure. But for the tainted heart, He is absent and just. The good news is that for those who come to Him, He does not leave them the same way in which He found them. Jesus is the one who transforms hearts and renews minds. He can take a heart of stone and make it flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).

Today will you examine your heart and let Him into those pieces of you that otherwise feel unchangeable? He wants to make you a new creation, restoring your heart to His original design of fellowship with Him. It is in fellowship with our Creator that we become whole. If you don’t know Jesus, I invite you to ask Him to make your heart of stone, making it into a heart of flesh. Ask Him to help you become faithful to Him, and let Him prove Himself faithful to you in the process. Ask Him to open the eyes of your heart to see Him as blameless and pure, not shrewd. He is waiting.

HARVESTING HOPE: That Your Joy Maybe Fulfilled.

October 29, 2022 /
Elda Othello-Wrightington

There is time and a season for everything. The most challenging seasons bring a lot of weight, pain, and questions. Yet they also bring unforgettable moments of God’s Faithfulness. Psalm 126:5-6 reminds us, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”

This has been a challenging season for me. In August, I had a miscarriage. Words cannot explain the utter emptiness I felt due to it. I actually felt numb. What made matters worse was how hard it was for me to worship. Anyone who knows me knows I love to worship and praise the Lord. Well, that first Sunday, when the worship team started playing, my hands went up, yet I felt absolutely nothing. For the very first time in my life, I couldn’t feel God. What I felt instead was numb and disconnected from my Daddy God.

Feeling disconnected from God scared me. It brought even more tears on top of that shed due to the trauma of my miscarriage. Hopelessness settled in my mind and slowly made its way into my broken heart. “Yet this I call to mind and there I have hope” –Lamentations 3:21. So one morning, I grabbed my bible, not really expecting anything but secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, this would help me connect with God. And let me tell you, God spoke!

The Lord took me to the Book of Lamentations, Chapter Three. And did not my soul lament as the prophet Jerimiah’s did? It sure did. But the Truth of God’s faithfulness in this passage, for me, began the process of healing and gleaning. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassion never fails. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” As believers, even during the most challenging moments in our lives, we can pull from God’s faithfulness, His Living Word, to help us cultivate hope. The passage goes on to say. “For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his love” –Lamentations 3:31-32.

God is a promise keeper. Despite the Israelite’s faithlessness and obedience, God still had a plan.

Someone reading this may be experiencing some level of grief. You’ve lost someone. Maybe something you were a part of for an awfully long time has ended. Things are changing, and you, too, find yourself lamenting. If you’re that person and haven’t accepted Jesus into your heart, I want to invite you to do so now. How? As always, your help, direction, the surety of every promise God has given you is found in His Living Word.

Romans 10:9-10 are the Words you’ll need to start your walk with the Lord today. They assure you of this simple Truth: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” I encourage you to open your mouth and declare Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Believe in your heart; honestly believe, with child-like faith, that if what you just prayed was sincere, you have been saved, freed from sin and eternal death. Galatians 3:22 reads, “But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.”

We have to have faith to have access to the promises of God. And that faith allows us to cultivate hope (and I’m not talking about faith in ourselves because, let’s be honest, sometimes faith in ourselves or others is not enough).

We must be connected to Jesus, for he is the author and finisher of our faith. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” –Hebrews 12:2.

If you just decided to accept Jesus as your personal Savior, I’ll let you in on more good news!

You are now carrying something inside of you. And that something is God’s seed, His Living Word. It lives inside of you now! “Galatians 3:22 reads, “But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.” Hold on to God’s faithfulness. It will help you have hope, even in your tears and waiting. How? By remembering what God has done for you in the past. Remembering what His Word says about you.

There is hope, even if it is as small as a mustard seed, for the Word of God says, “Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches” –Matthew 13:32.

You might wonder, how can I continue cultivating hope for the harvest? To me, sowing in tears means never giving up on God, even when you want to give up on yourself, your future, or others. God’s plans are better than we can imagine simply because He is. He knows our beginning from our end, and His plan for us is good. “For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for well-being and not for trouble, to give you a future and a hope” –Jeremiah 29:11.

So, one of the first ways to cultivate hope is to sow God’s Word into your heart.

May your heart be the tender ground where Its seeds are sown. Then, as a result, I hope you become grounded in God’s Word and His promises.

Even in our weeping, it is possible to harvest hope. We can weep and read the Word. We can weep and trust his promises. We can weep and know that every tear will reap joy in its season.Seed time and harvest are inevitable. However, what we produce results from how much hope we have and how we choose to respond to God.

So I leave you with this love note written to me from God. I’ll share it as a word of encouragement to you all.

I’m here. Stop doubting me. I know how much you care for me, and I know so many things don’t make sense. I am working in you, and I am not punishing you for anything. No one can understand the mystery of my ways because it’s designed that way. Giving up is never the answer. There is no death in my world. Your loss is not a loss to me. I am touching you with my love even if you don’t feel my touch. Be anxious for nothing. You can’t feel me because you need to relax. I can, and I will do what is best for you. Stop doubting if I am with you or if I hear you. Things are not always what they seem. —God.

John 15:11 NLT “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

We Do It By Remembering.

September 24, 2022 /
MaryEllen Montville

“Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised” –Hebrews 10:36.

I know, I know, Christian Soldier, you’re weary. Battle fatigued.

“My arms are tired from the seemingly endless fight.”

I’ve heard this same statement from many brothers and sisters of late. A few weeks back, in her teaching entitled “Fading Out,” Kendra briefly touched on the effects of weariness. She said, and I quote: The cycle of living can feel exhausting. Wake up, eat, work, take care of the house, sleep, repeat. I think we can agree that at one time or another, we have all understood, related to this reference from Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless.” We try our best to be good people. Yet leaving a mark on the world feels like a futile effort many days.

If you haven’t read this teaching in its entirety, I encourage you to do so.

I understand feeling weary; I do. Recently, I’ve been wrestling with the spirit of discouragement. Yet by God’s grace and in His strength, that thing has not been allowed to win the fight—try as it might. I thank God that we, as Blood-bought believers in Jesus Christ, are called, equipped, and sustained to live by faith, not by our flighty, one-minute-up-the-next-down, feelings. And when we forget this fact, I thank God for His eternal Word—our sure foundation. “But Jesus replied, “It is written and forever remains written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'” –Matthew 4:4.

Being God, and like any good father, Jesus knows not only what to say to us but equally how to speak to each of His children effectively.

Jesus, the Living Word, in the Person of His Holy Spirit, shows up in what sometimes feels like the very last second of our midnight hour. Yet, faithful Father that He is, He always comes as promised. “…and behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. Amen (so let it be)” –Matthew 28:20.

And most often, God speaks to His children through His inerrant, eternal, written Word; yet at other times, He speaks just as plainly through His creation. I love both, each an ever-present reminder of God’s faithfulness. From Genesis through Revelation, I find peace and security, assured that God is indeed the same today, in my life, as He was in Adams or Moses’, Miriam’s, or the Apostle John’s. He is the same God who shows Himself anew every Spring, as nascent buds take over bare winter branches. Giving us a foretaste of what’s to come in the fullness of time. “He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” –Revelation 21:5.

God is always speaking to us. The question is, are we listening?

Know this, child of God. The Holy Spirit can and will speak volumes through sunbeams flashing across treetops, making each leaf appear lit from within—afire somehow. He’ll change every leaf’s color in season to catch our attention, taking our breath away. When we witness thousands of sparking, tiny, diamond-like bits of that same Sun dancing wildly atop the surface of some pond, lake, or sea, God is essentially saying, “Here, look over here, at Me. Marvel over how I can make sunlight dance!” Listen to how King David described this same Sun. “It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course” –Psalm 19: 5.

I Am here, brilliant and captivating. I cause everything I touch to pulse with life. I AM ever consistent yet ever-changing, both Alpha and Omega, yet all the while able to show Myself uniquely to each of my children through every thing I have created.

God speaks of His character and love through His creation. He shares glimpses of His person, beauty, brilliance, and consistent nature with us. With His rainbow, God demonstrates He’s a promise keeper—throughout the generations. God will speak to us of change and changing through tides, both in their ebbing and flowing. He’ll talk of trusting Him—even as the seasons change. In winter’s stark, cold barrenness, God teaches us to draw near to Him for comfort and warmth. And with Spring’s promises of newness, God reminds us that hope never fails. Summers heat seeping into our pores reminds us that our God is in us, closer to us than our own breath, help in our hour of need. “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” –Psalm 46:1.

God uses such moments found in nature to arrest our attention.

Redirecting us, resurrecting what has been lost, our focus, back towards Him—imbibing us with new hope, we are refreshed, made new. I love that God is so diverse! How He uses a sunbeam or leaf, some dizzying sight, to capture our attention, arresting it. God speaks through these as loudly and with the surety of His written, Thus Says the Lord. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” –Psalm 19:1-4.

God’s Word, written or spoken through a sunbeam, renews us—in the twinkling of an eye. The needle of our compass ceases to spin wildly at will. God has restored True North. And with it, a heavy dose of much-needed encouragement. Encouragement is, after all, that spiritual elixir Jesus uses to refresh us along our long trek back Home. A font of Living Water bubbling up afresh from within, washing away our battle weary-ness. And, just like that, season after season, day after long day, we are reminded that we serve a loving, kind mercy-full Father. More, this same God who caused the Sun He created to light up the leaves He created—desires fellowship with us—with you. God is nothing if not personal. Jesus loves you. Mind-blowing, right?

The Sovereign God of the universe, Creator of heaven and earth, wants to be the Lover of your soul—your One and only True Love.

Jesus assured us He would stick by us until the very end. And we know that He is not a man that He can lie. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint” –Isaiah 40:30-31.

We must hold tight then to His every promise, His every Word. We must fix our eyes on Christ alone and keep them there. We must battle weariness head-on. And we do this by remembering God’s faithfulness, paying attention when He sends some ray of light our way, causing it to glimmer and shine just so. By trusting that if God did what He said He’d do in days past, He’ll surely do it now, today, and in the coming days. Life is not rinse and repeat, Beloved. Life is Christ, in us. Never forget that.

Friend, if you have yet to ask Jesus, the One who sticks closer than a brother, into your heart as Lord, please, do it today. To those who are faithful, God shows Himself faithful. And, unlike those who may have left you, Jesus never will. It’s His promise, and He cannot lie. “He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” – 1 Corinthians 1: 8-9.

You Are Mine.

September 3, 2022 /
MaryEllen Montville

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out” –Ezekiel 34:11.

God knows them that are his and can call his own sheep by name; he knows the places where they are; for he has fixed the bounds of their habitation, and was delighting himself in the habitable parts of the earth, where he knew they would be, even before the world was. –Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible.

It started in the Garden. God’s searching out His own, that is. Draw to His image and likeness; He sought communion with His creation. He’s seeking fellowship with you now, Beloved, even as you read this. God has always desired to be one with you through Christ Jesus. That started way before the Garden. Somewhere in eternity past. When Eden was but a seed yet planted and you, a mere sketch, some faint intersecting lines in God’s mind, waiting to be created.

Yet be sure of this one thing, God knows where you are.

Nothing and no one are hidden from Him, even when we think we are, especially when we may want to be. “When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God” –Genesis 3:8.

We serve a God whose very nature is Love. He is relational—desiring intimate communion with His children. To walk and talk with us, talk with you, friend. God’s love is personal. He knows you by name. And God loves you. Jesus lived as a man and died as one, just for you. The fact that the Sovereign God of the universe, Holy and blameless, desires to know us, be in a covenant relationship with us, with me, borders on incomprehensible. Something just too good to be true. Yet as mind-blowing as that is for this writer to take in at times. I know it to be true. God, Himself has told me so.

He is an intimate, personal Father. One who desires an open-door invitation into our hearts and lives that He might walk through them at will. Listen to how John Eldredge states this truth: Jesus came to reveal God to you. He is the defining Word on God—on what the heart of God is truly like, on what God is up to in the world, and on what God is up to in your life.

Tell me, friend, have you dared to ask God what He’s up to in your life?

Have you afforded God, His Son, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit an open-door invitation?

Have you invited them in—made room for them?

Do you seek, want to know more of, or at all, this God who thought it not too great a sacrifice to send His only Son to die in your place?

Has it crossed your mind that no one else but Jesus ever made such a sacrifice just for you?

“Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for Love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD” –Ezekiel 16:8. As surely as God’s covenant with Israel stands—and it always will. So it will be with you, child of God. Having been grafted into His everlasting promise of Love and devotion, your loving Father will continually fight for you. Woo, you. Desire you only.

God wants, more; He chooses to be active in your life. He longs to be the center of your every waking moment, invited into and consulted about your dreams and decisions.

“Even those decisions I may consider far too dull, too trite to “trouble” God over. Isn’t it too much to ask of God that He help me make decisions? Listen as I talk about my dreams. Bring clarity to my confusion and doubt. After all, He’s God! Isn’t He too busy overseeing the entire planet, to say nothing of knowing the heart and thoughts of every single person—simultaneously? Doesn’t God have too much going on to be bothered with my thoughts and troubles,” you ask?

The answer, friend? Absolutely, emphatically, No! Nope. Not at all. Never.

Psalm 139 makes it plain God already knows everything about you. He’s just waiting on you to bid Him welcome into your life, heart, and your “boring” daily concerns. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely” –Psalm 139:1-4.

You are not faceless, nameless, nor aimless in God’s eyes, Beloved. God created you on purpose, for a purpose. “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything” –Ecclesiastes 11:5. You are no mistake. God sees you. God’s way is so much higher than our own. So far beyond our finite ability to take in, friend. You’ve been created to touch lives no one else can. Why? They don’t carry in them what God has placed in you alone. You are as unique as your fingerprint!

So regardless of what you’ve been told, think about yourself. Contrary to your feelings, God loves you and desires to have a relationship with you. Yes, you personally. He wants to make His home in you.

Now please hear my heart. I’m in no way trying to minimize your pain or any trauma you may have suffered at the hands of another. I remember the sting of such wounds all too well. I’m just speaking the Truth in love here, sharing something that can save you. The Truth that can and will heal your pain. With the full authority of one God has healed, I can say that healing from such wounds is possible—no matter how nasty or deep they are.

All things are possible with God.

Friend, God is so acutely attuned to His world. His creation, to you, personally, that even when a sparrow, some little chick somewhere, falls to the ground, it doesn’t escape His notice. “Are not two little sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s leave (consent) and notice” –Matthew 10:29.

God created you. He has a plan and purpose for your life. Still, despite the lengths this magnificent, Sovereign, Loving, relational God can and will go to reach you, the one thing God won’t do, can’t do, is violate the free will He’s given you, died to provide you. You must then choose to say yes and welcome a relationship with God.

The choice is yours. God has done His part. Ask Jesus into your heart today, as Lord, Father, and Friend. He’s waiting for you to say welcome, come in. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” –John 3:16-17.

But I Thought…

August 20, 2022 /
MaryEllen Montville

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” –Isaiah 55:8-9.

We need God’s grace to surrender our wants, our ought to be’s, and should, into His Sovereign hands. God’s grace enables us to stop playing god and start trusting Him instead, putting legs beneath our professions. Without God’s grace, we are power-less. A dead branch disconnected from the Vine. “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” –Philippians 2:13.

We are called, instructed, commanded to surrender our fragile, ever-changing thoughts to God—all of us, in exchange for making room for, more of Him. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” –Philippians 4:8.

To “put on” the mind of Christ—is a choice we must make—daily. Over and over and over again. Sunup to sundown. A laying down that we might take up. Intentionally tearing down, destroying, every idol self has dared set up in opposition to God. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” –2Corinthians 10:5.

Yielding to God then, our desired outcomes and how we thought our lives were supposed to look and progress. Whether in our marriages, parenting choices, ministry, Christian walk, prayer life, or how we thought deliverance or transformation might look. Surrendering our every expectation on the “how or when,” God, in His Divine timing, will transform us—our hearts, lives, and attitudes; confidently trusting that He will never break His promise. He can’t. “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” –Numbers 23:19.

We are called to understand, recognize, surrender to the fact that He alone is God; we are not. He alone is Sovereign; too often, we are little more than a fly-by-night people.

Many of us love a person, place, or thing, even God’s blessings, today, yet lose our desire for any more of them tomorrow. We witness this Truth unfold before our very eyes when reading Exodus 16. In it, we read about a group of Israelites suddenly freed from their oppressor’s exacting grip. And we read of God’s miraculous power flowing through one man He’d been preparing in the Midian wilderness—his name, Moses. “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” –Exodus 16:2-3.

Shortly after the dancing and rejoicing over freedom gained had stopped, the grumbling began in earnest. So did the suspicious glances and doubting. Seemingly gone from their memory that moment when Moses stood, lifting his shepherd’s staff high in obedience to God’s command. The water responded by standing erect, solid as any wall. Gone too, it seems, the memory of how they’d crossed between that wall of water from slavery into a land promised them by God on a bone-dry sea bottom no less! Talk about an oxymoron! Not so much as one person getting stuck or being left behind, nor did one cartwheel sink into what should have been little more than muck. The Israelites suffered no loss that day. Some scholars say more than half a million people stepped onto that dried-up seabed as slaves, yet every single one of them stepped out the other side free men—more, sons and daughters: a chosen people, God’s own.

And as incredible as all that is, I am not here today to exalt God’s ability to deliver a race of people from oppression—though He has and can, nor to tout that He is the God of miracles—though He is.

No, today I’m here to cast light on just how easy it was for the Israelites, is, for you and me, to forget not only who and Whose we are but also about our ignoring God’s great mercy. “Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.'” While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud. The Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God” –Exodus 16:9-12.

Brothers, God’s Sovereign Hand is covering us daily—a Pillar of fire by night and a Cloud by day, still: protection and provision.

Somehow, the Israelites soon forgot how Moses had “suddenly” shown up, used by God to deliver them from Pharaoh’s deadly grip, and how every plague sent upon Egypt failed to reach them, their livestock, or households. Having left the bloodied door posts from a Passover past far behind them, they forgot God had been shedding innocent blood since the Garden that He might save His people. In their grumbling, they forgot God was still in their midst. That He still loved them, was guiding them, and showed Himself faithful, that He might save them—despite their failing Him. “The [presence of the] LORD was going before them by day in a pillar (column) of cloud to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, so that they could travel by day and by night” –Exodus 13:21.

Yet the Israelites just couldn’t see it.

But now, before you go thinking, “how could they have missed God? He was right there with them, for Pete’s sake!” Remember, child of God. He lives within you, and you still miss Him daily, too.

The Israelites missed God because He wasn’t their focus, “lack of” was their focus. Self, that little g god, was their focus. All of us will miss God. His presence in our lives. His instruction, mercy, His move. We’ll miss the blessing obedience offers as we submit ourselves to those Godly shepherds, He has placed over us as long as we are focused on our flesh. As long as we live in “, but I thought it should,” look like, come

package as, even feel a certain way, instead of living as Jesus taught us, in complete submission to God. “In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” –Ephesians 4:22-24.

Beloved, Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us that our thoughts, how we think, life ought to go, look, and feel are not God’s thoughts or ways—far from it! They’re not the way God, who created and sealed us in Himself, has planned for our lives to go. “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” –1 Peter 1:17-19.

I encourage you to surrender yourself afresh to God, Beloved. Leaving behind your every, “but I thought….”

And Friend, I encourage you to ask this All-Knowing God, whose ways are far above your own, into your life as Lord. Know this: God can and will deliver you from any situation, bondage, addiction, from the exacting grip of any lie spoken over you or any lie you’ve believed about yourself. Trust that He knows what’s best for you. I know this to be Truth—because He did it for me. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” –Jeremiah 29:11.

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